ABSTRACT
The government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (the HKSAR) possesses a mandate pursuant to the Basic Law of the HKSAR (the Basic Law), part of the Laws of the People’s Republic of China, to provide “an appropriate economic and legal environment for the maintenance of the status of Hong Kong as an international financial center.” 1 For instance, under the new legal order of the Basic Law, the Legislative Council may exercise its power to impeach the chief executive if the Executive Government fails to make good this provision. 2 Historically adherent to a laissez-faire policy, colonial Hong Kong was slow to support any form of regulatory control. Even when laws were enacted to regulate the financial markets, the politic and administrative will to enforce the laws was absent. When the People’s Republic of China (PRC) resumed the exercise of sovereignty over the HKSAR on July 1, 1997, it also assumed control over one of the least developed legal systems in the developed common law world.
